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Vocatus atque non vocatus Deus aderit

If I were a member of the 1%…

Were I a member of the 1%, I would simply get on a plane this morning and fly over to see this show. I’d do stuff like that all the time. In fact, had I become a member of the 1% by winning that absurd Lottery the other day (I forgot to buy a ticket), I would have purchased all my students iPads, bought them expedited passports, and taken them to the show. We’d have dawdled in London for a couple days, headed over via Chunnel to Amsterdam for some Van Gogh, thence to Bruges and Ghent. I may not have the requisite academic training, but I’d be a pretty enthusiastic tour guide at the small Memling Museum, and I would love to show off the Adoration of the Mystic Lamb. We’d have stopped in Brussels, and at about 9pm on a weeknight my kids and I would sit in a circle in the Grand Platz facing outward, recording impressions and questions and photos on our iPads. Then we’d rotate the circle 180 degrees and do it again.

Thence to Paris for a few days. We’d have visited one by one the Gothic cathedrals of France, taking a day in each town, reading and learning about a famous person or event or historical fact associated with it. We’d hit some Romanesque churches too–Vezelay in particular–and eventually we’d wind up on a beach at the Riviera for a few days. Then we’d fly home and I’d pay off the mortgage and retire.